Fun changes / new things over the last month:

* Has learned to enjoy the kiddie pool with a floatie

* Has managed to crawl / climb up a full flight of stairs.

* Has become willing to crawl long distances (across the room) to find interesting things such as a window or one of those springy doorstoppers which make a FWINGGGGGGGG noise if you flick them).

* Has learned to pull himself up on various objects, and is getting fairly stable standing with one hand for support.

* Likes to protest being put in his crib by standing instead (note he has not yet mastered sitting back down gracefully)

* Has progressed from vampire-teeth to having his front teeth + vampire teeth on top, and bottom front teeth as well.

* Has figured out how to put a piece of solid food into his mouth.

* Has give or take outgrown his infant carseat and various other low weight limit furniture (20.5 lbs as of a few weeks ago)

* Has discovered that his daddy wears glasses, and wants to inspect them closely after ripping them off of his face.

Added many new videos and photos, bringing both galleries current.

Since Tristan learned very recently to move himself around, he has been a little machine. He wants to stand ALL of the time. This means that he wants to stand while he should be sleeping. Yep, he’s doing that fun thing where he starts standing in his crib and then has no idea how to get back down, so for the first time in a few months we actually must go into his room to deal with his crying when he’s not going to sleep. Poor baby. But I’m really glad that we have the standing thing well underway. I got worried when his crawling paws failed him for a couple of months! In addition to his standing escapades, Tristan can now switch from crawling and sitting at will. Finally, the little baby is rarely found lying down! He even sits up in the bathtub now and we’ve had a few bubble baths.

We also picked up one of Tristan’s new car seats a few weeks back and I think I forgot to mention it. Although he’s over 20 pounds, he’s still under 1 year, so he must face rearward. That meant that whichever seat we got had to accomodate that, and it narrowed our choices greatly. We did find a comfy one that I like using a whole lot better than his infant seat. We still need to get a second seat for the second car, since he’s almost officially too big for the infant seat which has just been kept in the second car since we got this new seat, and we’ll likely have to get another one of the ones that faces rearward as well.

We succeeded in getting the iBert bicycle seat and mounting it on my bike. Now we can take family cycle rides! Tristan’s head is big enough for a helmet, and he looks very interesting with one on. We’re going to take it slow as he gets a little bit older (and James gets a bit more used to cycling again) but I look forward to taking him out to interesting places during the day as well as cycling as a family.

For those of you who wonder what it is actually like to ride with one of those things, I will say.. weird but not difficult. I was a bit worried at first; after mounting the seat I couldn’t get onto the bike! I took it outside with plenty of legroom and tried again successfully. The belt/harness thing is sort of ghetto-fabulous, and I don’t trust it to restrain Tristan’s little climby-paws should he decide he is done with riding. Baby’s head also sort of rested on my chest with how I ride, or what size I am (for those of you don’t know me in person, I am short and stout, sort of like a dwarf but with less of a beard), but it actually was comforting to me as I felt like I had control of him should he be a little bit unsteady. As for the ride itself, he absolutely loved it. An excited Tristan is easy to spot, with the Puntypaws ™ flailing; his entire body is compelled to jump a bit. Even as kickety as he was, the seat kept his legs in and out of my way. He can reach some of the gadgetry on my handlebars but the only thing he figured out how to fuck with was my bell. But it was nice being able to observe him instead of try to guess how he was doing.

(so yes, get this seat if you’re a bicyclist!)

Tristan can officially crawl now – I’m sure he pretty much could for a while, but either lacked confidence or motive. He’s still pretty slow, but he can creep back to any place you’ve just removed him from. He’s getting more confident in moving his body – I notice he’s changing his position from sitting to crawling a lot, and in the other direction sometimes. James has found him sitting up in the crib once now.

We’re still working on standing and Tristan is getting more confident and proficient there, too. He will either grab our hands/arms while sitting in our laps or he will grab an object with bars, such as his jumper, and then balance while holding on to the point where he’s starting to look comfortable. He falls a lot but I hear this is a trait all toddlers pretty much have while they are toddlers.

We got a new carrier for Tristan – the Ergo. It’s sort of a cross between a basic pack carrier and a Mei Tai. Anyway, the main selling points of the thing are that it’s faster to use than a Mei Tai and it supports baby in an ergonomic position. What I didn’t know about it is that the 20 lb baby I’ve been used to wearing feels a lot more like a 10 lb baby. I may not be able to wear him facing out in this carrier, which will suck, but this is a great utility and comfort carrier.

Lots of little goings on.

A couple of days ago, I lowered his crib to the lowest possible setting. I asked a community that I spend way too much time lurking at, and it seemed that the 8-month mark was a good one for that. Another guideline that I read said that when baby shows interest (not necessarily ability) in standing, to lower the damn thing. Anyway, thankfully Tristan was happy in his Exersaucer while I spent ten years lowering the crib. Now his dragon crib ruffle bed skirt thingie drags on the floor – no pun intended. Damnit, that was the last piece of the dragon set that was useful.. Anyway, the crib thing is working fine; it’s a lot like putting him in a playpen. Tristan also does not try to pull to standing or even to sitting while in the crib (that we see, anyway) but he does do both in other settings. Mostly, he just tries to crawl or lie on his back and punt his little legs around in his crib when awake.

Tristan’s crawling is getting somewhere. He’s now officially mobile but he is slow enough and not confident enough that he doesn’t get far quickly yet. I know that these are my final few moments before having a flying toddler underfoot that I will have to chase down constantly. He practices standing a lot, too – whenever one of us is holding him in a position to spot for it. He still cannot balance on two feet for more than a second for the most part, although he gets it for a good moment sometimes.

We found that the commercial jar baby food in the 3rd foods range is perfect for Tristan right now. I don’t know if he had a coincidental food strike or was just looking for more challenging foods, but since we started feeding the 3rd foods, he’s been gobbling solids. He also seems to be a somewhat thirsty baby but upon doing some research, what he drinks is close to normal. He doesn’t seem interested in self-feeding solid foods or trying to tackle the yogurt puffs and the like, although he at least recognizes them as food now. I think I will wait a few days before trying those with him again.

I don’t know if this child is gaining a lot of weight suddenly or I’m getting weak in my old age, but it’s getting very hard to wear Tristan for too long. For the most part, it had been getting easier and in some ways it still is, as I can reliably wear him for any occasion where I start by putting him in the sling (and leaving the stroller behind). But my back aches right now and the last two long walks we took in the evening left me very tired at the end. At least it’s exercise and baby likes it.

I took Tristan out to a thrift shop, which turned out to suck. Then we went to the adjacent Walgreens and walked around forever. A lady who may have been a member of the staff based on her outfit noticed Tristan in the carrier and approached him (as people often do). She had several pieces of paper in her hand and she crinkled them. That was the funniest thing that Tristan had ever seen – he giggled wildly. She continued to do this for a few minutes, and Tristan giggled nonstop until he got tired of giggling. I thought the whole scene was funny and I like seeing baby happy, so I also had the giggles. People kept coming over to watch the scene and coo at the baby. People also always comment about what a happy baby he is, just about everywhere we go. I think the secret to happy babiness in our case is: let baby sleep, when baby wakes up feed/diaper, put baby in car with lots of grabby toys, take baby somewhere he hasn’t seen or generally is excited to see and put him in the sling, have strangers coo over him and talk to him like they had never seen a baby before. He really does seem to be a social critter so far.